Katie Compton Has a Gnarly Crash, With a Disc Brake Slicing Her Knee to the Bone

Katie Compton, the 14-time cyclocross national champion, saw her season come to a painful close on Saturday when a disc brake sliced her knee to the bone during a racing wreck.

Compton was in Lille, Belgium, racing in the Krawatencross, the final round of the DVV Trophy series. As she approached the first right turn in the sand, she got caught between two other riders and took a spill that left her with a broken shoe and a severely gashed knee. The 39-year-old American described the crash as a “British sandwich of poor decision making.”

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“I was riding the line in the rut and Helen [Wyman] literally ran into me on my right and took me out,” Compton told Bicycling. “Nikki [Brammeier] was on my left doing the same thing… There was no room to pass there and they should have waited instead of crashing people out just to get by.”

Compton got up and kept racing, not realizing how badly her knee was hurt. What she did soon notice, however, was that the Boa wire on her shoe was cut so it wouldn’t stay fastened, leaving her unable to run or pull up on the pedals until she could get a shoe change.

“I then spent the whole race making passes and trying to get by,” she said. “It was frustrating to say the least.” Compton ended up finishing in seventh place.

After the race, Mark Legg, Compton's husband, issued an angry tweet accompanied by a grisly close-up of the wound:

What happens when two riders make poor decisions and can’t be patient on the first lap and squeeze Katie into a crash? Disc rotor cut to the bone. Not a happy way to end a great season 😠 pic.twitter.com/7ORlxqWXh0

This isn’t the first time disc brakes—which after a temporary ban are set to become the equipment of choice in the pro peloton—have caught flak for filleting racers during wrecks. Team Sky’s Owain Doull called for their prohibition last year after claiming that another rider's rotor slashed through his shoe. (Video footage of the crash suggests it was actually a fence.)

But Compton’s injury hasn’t changed her favorable opinion on disc brakes. “I like disc brakes and find that the injuries incurred aren’t that bad in the whole scheme of things,” she said. “Broken bones and road rash hurt way more. At least the cuts are clean and can be sewed up easily enough.”

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She maintained that rider behavior, not equipment, is what more often causes dangerous conditions during a race.

“Disc brakes are much safer on the road and the trails since you can stop and have more control,” she said. “It’s the individual riders within the group that affect the safety of everyone more than anything. It only takes one person not paying attention or trying to fit into a hole that’s not there to cause a crash and the pileup that ensues.”

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